Egypt & The Eternal Conspiracy

A top aide to Egyptian President Mohamed Morsy blamed a small but powerful minority for the political upheaval that has plagued the country ahead of a planned constitutional referendum.

Of course. Over the weekend, I heard a report on This American Life, from Egypt, in which anti-Morsi Egyptian liberals excoriated the United States for supporting the tyrant Morsi. Yes, that’s right: the Islamist who now runs Egypt is America’s fault, is Obama’s puppet. One of them also blamed Israel, naturally.

In that culture, it’s always and everywhere someone else’s fault, usually the Americans’, or the Jews’. Makes life easier that way, and relieves one of the responsibility for one’s own actions, or lack of action.

25 Responses to Egypt & The Eternal Conspiracy

A part of me wants to ask, “Can you blame them?” The United States does, indeed, meddle a great deal in the part of the world and has been doing so for decades. Mubarak, Mossadegh, Saddam Hussein (support in the 80s, war and enmity in the 90s, overthrow in the aughts), the House of Saud, the Shah, Reagan in Lebanon, Qaddafi, post-2003 Iraq, threatening Iran, fleets in the Gulf, arming Syrian rebels, Afghanistan (80s and aughts), Pakistan, drones filling the sky, assassinations and cyberwar against Iran, bombing Sudan, “save Darfur”, Yemen, Djibouti, Somalia… and, yes, our astoundingly lavish, self-destructive support of Israel.

Can you blame some Egyptians for suspecting that the US might be meddling again? Is it so implausible, given our history in the region, to fear that the Americans have cut a secret deal with Morsi — “You can do what you want internally, just make nice with Israel”? That was, more or less, our arrangement with Mubarak.

When I lived on a small island in the Caribbean, some folks told me they were convinced that a nearby island was conspiring against them. And the people in the town on the east half of the island were suspicious of the folks in the town on the western half. Similarly, many US whites suspect that Affirmative Action is keeping them down. It’s a natural way to think. It’s probably all the worse in a sclerotic, tyrannized country like Egypt.

I’m very wary of the whole “racism”/”orientalism” crap, but seriously, your drifting into Marty Peretz/Commentary territory with this “it’s all about the culture of death of them shiftless sand niggers” talk.

Eric Margolis and Steve Walt both have good pieces about the complexities of what’s really going on in Egypt. A messy, several-years-long power struggle in a post-revolutionary situation doesn’t always mean France and Russia.

I don’t buy it, but there are superficially good reasons for one to come to the conclusions you cite above (crude language about “the Jews” notwithstanding). Just read Commentary or PJ Media about how Obama is bringing the Muslim Brotherhood to power in Egypt, Syria, Libya, Turkey, and beyond.

My dad has deep roots just south of Georgia that go back to the late 1700’s. He is poor, and if not white trash, then in the neighborhood of it. He can still talk up a storm about how well off the family was before the North came down and took everything in the Civil War. A real genteel family we once were, apparently! But, you know, in that culture, it’s always and everywhere someone else’s fault, usually the Yankees, or Northern banking interests.

Are you sure that it’s a question of culture, rather than institutions? A friend who moved to Cairo tells me that there is, as you say, a widespread belief in a number of frankly bizarre conspiracy theories, but his theory is that it’s the absence of any kind of trusted news media that produces this state of affairs. This seems plausible to me: If the official story from state media is always a lie, and there is no credible alternative, it would become hard to tell fact from figments of the imagination.

You wrote ‘… in that culture, … ‘ as if hatred of ‘ the Jews’ is somehow intrinsic to Muslims. You should know that classic anti-Semitism is a product of Christianity, right out of the New Testament. And the current conspiracy theories against Jews is right out of the European mainstream, being no longer politically correct in Europe after the Holocaust, it has found an audience in the Middle East.

Personally I think this current fad of Christians supporting Israel and tolerating Jews is a just a phase, like that age before Ferdinand and Isabella in Spain or the flowering of Yiddish culture in Eastern Europe. Pretty soon Christians will revert to their base instincts against ‘the Jews’ again.

Maybe Morsi’s aide is right: I heard that America’s problems are being caused by a small-but-powerful group of elites that aren’t willing to stand up for (and presumably enforce) traditional morality. If they’re willing to let America fall apart, then surely they’re willing to meddle in Egypt…

Krek: You should know that classic anti-Semitism is a product of Christianity

That’s a parochial Anglo-Saxon (especially American) myth. Anti-Semitism has appeared in such a wide variety of countries and cultures over so many different periods of history that it’s more likely a reaction to the behaviour of prominent Jews in each society than anything to do with Christian “base instincts”.

Krek: Personally I think this current fad of Christians supporting Israel and tolerating Jews is a just a phase

If tolerance is a two-way street then I agree Christians will eventually tire of the one-way hatred directed their way and start to respond in kind.

Krek: like that age before Ferdinand and Isabella in Spain

In these dark days a Ferdinand and Isabella Golden Age would be something to look forward too.

Noah172: Can you blame some Egyptians for suspecting that the US might be meddling again? Is it so implausible, given our history in the region, to fear that the Americans have cut a secret deal with Morsi — “You can do what you want internally, just make nice with Israel”? That was, more or less, our arrangement with Mubarak.

Conservative cultures indulge and nurse along conspiracy theories. After all, on their own terms they’d attain near-perfection. So there must always be a Devil (the institutionalized conspiracy theory par excellence) to explain their failures and their opponents.

Rod, you’re not fairly describing what Morsi’s aid is actually saying. He’s not saying that the protests are being organized by some secret cabal. He’s saying that the protestors represent an wealthy and educated elite, while the majority of poor, ordinary Egyptians support Morsi. Not only is that not a “conspiracy theory,” it might actually be objectively true.

Also–the United States is supporting the current government, to the tune of the billions of dollars in aid that we continue to provide our Egyptian client. And it’s not some crazy fantasy that we’d support an Islamist regime that oppresses and immiserates its own people–we’ve been supporting the Saudi monarchy for decades.

I’m on board with the observation that conspiracy theories thrive in Arab nations. But perhaps a commitment to personal responsibility would lead an American to ask what the United States might be doing that makes the average Arab so willing to believe that the US supports brutal regimes in the region at the expense of ordinary people. The answer, strangely enough, is that we have a decades-long track record of supporting brutal regimes at the expense of ordinary people in the region. But I understand why you’d rather paint Arab mistrust of the United States as something that has everything to do with Arabs being craaaazy, and nothing to do with the policies of your own government. Makes life easier that way, and relieves you of the responsibility for your own actions, or lack of action.

I’ve lived in Lebanon for two years now, and in Egypt for about a year. The depth of conspiracy thinking here is incredible. It is, in my opinion, far beyond anything I’ve experienced in the States.

Walter Laqueur observed in European anti-Semitism two conflicting strands of thought: In one, the “Jew” is all powerful, and in the second, sub-human and weak.

America regularly appears in conversation in much the same way in the Middle East. Americans are amoral, bungling idiots who nonetheless pull all of the strings. The truth of course being that America is far more intelligent, better and altogether less in control.

The colonial experience is also not one to be ignored. Whatever your thoughts on Edward Said, we’re not a century beyond. That’s just not that long ago.

It’s something to live in a country so dependent on the condition of its border states and politics of the superpowers. The US gets by well enough with Mexico in on the edge of crisis. Lebanon is on the ever-brink of war with Syria on its border. Any chance of progress is doomed until the civil war there is resolved. When?

Israel is surrounded by either failed, or near-failing states. Israel’s planes violate Lebanese airspace daily, and Lebanon can furnish no response. The drone warfare. The Muslim Brotherhood is one of the region’s most powerful military powers because of its connection with Iran.

Then we can speak of the astonishing level of regional poverty.

Rod, I think back to the clarification distinction you drew between holding those poor to the same moral standards, while still acknowledging how that segment of the population is must operate with far less room for error.

Hey, I heard the same episode in “this american life” (which I rearly miss), and felt the same way. It looks like those people invest all their mental resources finding a way to blame everything on U.S. and Israel.
(And for those saying there is something in this acccusation, please keep in mind that we are also being blamed for tsunami, 9/11, and Sinai shark attacks)